


Love Song with Blue Light

by ryyves



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Poetry, post-68 feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22733935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryyves/pseuds/ryyves
Summary: Do you remember him more clearly from the back of his head,his buzzcut growing out, blue light like a halo around the shouldersof your goddamn savior?For Sammy Stevens and the ghost he follows.
Relationships: Sammy Stevens/Jack Wright
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Love Song with Blue Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [testdrive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/testdrive/gifts).



What did his eyes look like, after he was gone?  
I mean how many times did you buy his favorite food  
and not touch it? I mean do you know his order  
in restaurants you’ve never been to,  
the clothes he would buy in window displays?  
I mean did you remove his scary movies  
from your Netflix list? Was the empty house  
scarier?

I mean was he ever afraid did you see him afraid did you hold him,  
afraid, with blue light in his eyes, and ask him to stay?  
How many times did he say _come with me?_ How many times  
did you say you wanted a home here? I mean there were things of his  
all over the house and it wasn’t home anymore.  
I mean the lock must have been broken, ‘cause the worst of you  
kept getting in. I mean how did you keep on with the show  
when your voice was an echo and his was nowhere at all?

I mean in parking lots you stare at open car doors until you see a head,  
and the urge to bolt hits you like a bass drop. I mean the shape  
of your chest where a heart would go looks like him. I mean ask the doctor.  
Do you remember him more clearly from the back of his head,  
his buzzcut growing out, blue light like a halo around the shoulders  
of your goddamn savior?

I mean to say, when did you change your home screen?  
When did you pack his smile away? I want you to tell me  
it didn’t feel like betrayal.  
I want you to tell me how long you held on.  
I want you to tell me when you stopped saying his name.  
Did you hear it in the mouths of young mothers  
and bartenders; did you see it on barista name badges,  
in books you read two pages of before setting aside?  
The city was big and life was moving on without you  
and you weren’t doing enough?

Who are you, Sammy Stevens,  
if you don’t have the one person  
you were running toward?  
What do you see  
when your eyes are closed?  
You never fancied yourself Cronkite.  
I mean, did you think  
you could follow through?  
The world is mysterious  
and you were never prepared for it.

The sun comes up and you are left with hands  
that carried his belongings home from the police station.  
Your hands look like an absence, light without his fingers  
fitted into their crevasses, a multitude of lines  
you could never make sense of. You sat with his bag open  
at your feet and knew you wouldn’t stay. The sun comes up  
and you are left with your voice on the radio show you shared,  
with his cluttered office on breaks. You sit in his chair,  
go through his search history. You refill your coffee every hour.

Did he know how far back the dark goes? Did you tell him?  
Did you have flat eyes always, and if not,  
when did you first notice them? What is a ghost but a thing  
that’s left you behind? What is a ghost but the shape  
that watches you set the dinner table for one, that whispers  
directions from the passenger seat with the windows down,  
that vanishes when you close your hands into fists?  
What is a ghost but a name on your tongue  
and the space it fills in the empty air? What is a ghost  
but the shape of your hands before you in the dark?

After years in King Falls, you are still finding his things  
in your car – flavored chewing gum, gloves, a pair of glasses  
in the overhead. He belongs to this place that has stolen him,  
and you have no way to reconcile that. Button your shirt.  
Keep your feet poised to run. If you are walking,  
how do you know he is not walking away?

And there, in a room with a shattered sound board,  
your headphones around your neck and your hands digging  
so tightly into your scalp they pull your hair loose,  
a man who loves you in a different way takes your hands,  
even though he should be afraid, and holds them  
while you shake. He touches you and his hand  
goes clean through. He touches you and holds so tight  
you start to feel real.

I mean, say Jack’s name until your voice goes.  
Now say yours.


End file.
